Within the broad diversity of television programming, a particular viewer may feel some television programs are acceptable, and other programs are offensive. Moreover, a parent may feel that some programs are suitable for their children and others are not. V-Chip technology was created in an effort to help owners of televisions better control the types of programming content that is accessible through their television. V-Chip technology is based on a system where parental ratings are associated with different television programs, and the user of the television can block programs based on ratings. For example, a television user could select to block all programs that are rated “TV-MA.” The “MA” stands for mature audiences and indicates that the program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17.
With a V-Chip enabled television, a user can only categorically block content based on the program's rating designation. For example, a parent may wish to block all episodes of the television sitcom Coupling™ because of its sexually charged content. Coupling™ has a TV-14 rating, but the television user may not want to block all programs with the TV-14 rating. The user may only want to block all episodes of the “Coupling” television program, and permit access to other television programs that have a TV-14 rating. Also, a user may want to only allow certain selected programs, and block all other programs. For example, parents may wish to allow access to the children's program “Sesame Street” and the children's program “Mr. Rogers” but then block all other programs.
If a media program (i.e. a television show) contains content that a parent finds objectionable (i.e. certain words or phrases), the parent could use a filtering application to filter or block the objectionable content during the presentation of the program. Applications exist for muting objectionable words. However, some words or phrases might be offensive in one context, but acceptable in a different context. For example, a parent might find the word “bitch” offensive when used as an insult, but find the word “bitch” acceptable when used in reference to a female dog. This problem can sometimes be solved by examining the words that proceed and follow the questionable word. For example, “you” followed immediately by “bitch” would indicate a high probability that the word “bitch” is being used in an offensive manner. However, when the word “the” is followed immediately by the word “bitch” it is difficult to accurately determine the context of the word based on the surrounding words.
These and other issues may be resolved by various implementations of the present invention as set forth in detail below.